Author
Topic: Ambient Music + Copyright (Read 3825 times)

I think this thread got sidetracked a bit, I think the original posts were more debating the fairness of the current copyright system. Regardless of what the laws are in whatever country you live in, I personally have no problem with someone sampling something if it's mangled beyond recognition. Plenty of avante garde or drone artists do this, most of my Gramophone Transmissions album is sample-based, granted almost all of it from sources that are now copyright-free. But the difference between stealing and sampling would be that, in my opinion, I made something new with it through heavy handed processing and careful layering. Also, it's not like I can ask Claude Debussy if I can sample 2 seconds of one of his symphonies...

However, would I sample one of my contemporaries? No. Especially without asking first.

Now if we were to debate the 'all music should be free' battle cry that Gen-Y'ers worldwide shout from their mothers basements... boy oh boy do I have a rant ready to be unleashed...

Since there have been many posts since my explanation, I'll just add a couple comments.

First, banning a member is never done lightly. This has been building for a while, and I have been receiving complaints for several months. In fact, when I was travelling for Thanksgiving, I had to spend several hours on my laptop trying to put out fires of angry forum members demanding I do something then. At least one well-regarded, long-term forum member said he wouldn't be back.

Second, Immersion was warned several times behind the scenes. One thing he did improve was cutting down the direct personal insults, at least in terms of removing specific WORDS that can be considered insults... such as "stupid" or "idiotic." Having said that, it's certainly possible to insult a person without using any such words. Telling a musician or record label owner that if they want to charge people for their music, they're not better than a prostitute, is such an example.

Third, we are all human beings here. If you taunt and provoke people all around you, and constantly inflame everyone so they're all upset, sooner or later you'll fire up the emotions and the anger in a person who has the power to delete your posts or ban you. Doing this after you've been warned multiple times to cool it is simply playing with fire, and much as I hate to see someone banned, in this case it's nobody's fault but the member who was banned.

Fourth, as a general rule in life -- not just on internet forums, but in relationships, in family, and workplaces, if you are a member of a large group of people who are all getting along, and nobody has a problem with anybody else, nobody fights or argues... then you enter the group and suddenly provoke fights and disputes with otherwise peaceful people... sorry, but the problem is YOU, not everybody else. Acting innocent and proclaiming "it's just my opinion" after the fact, that's disingenuous.

Good post Mike, filling in a bit more context to where things ended up.

A shame in a sense, considering his obvious interest in matters ambient and gear in particular. I should say though, that if I came onto a forum like this at a relatively early stage in my musical development, I would be much more willing to listen to other more established people's advice - not always, but more so than repeatedly stating my own opinions / observations in an overly autocratic manner.

Of course a forum is full of opinions, but some discussion should arise out of differing opinions - hopefully !

Good post Mike, filling in a bit more context to where things ended up.

A shame in a sense, considering his obvious interest in matters ambient and gear in particular

Yes - I think Immersion was given extra chances because he obviously did care about the music, and had a lot of technical knowledge, and participated in a lot of topics.

At a time when forums like this one are mostly dying off all over the internet (check the Lustmord.com forum or the 12k.com forum lately), active and enthusiastic members are valuable. Unfortunately that value can be offset (perhaps more than offset) by too vocally disrespecting the other hundreds of forum members, including moderators.

I think you did the right thing. This is a very peaceful forum that's more civil than a lot of message boards I've seen and you can't let one person drive people away. Immersion seriously needed to chill out and he just didn't do it. He banned himself. I didn't think much of his antics at first but he kept getting worse and worse.

Out of interest I started reading Immersions early posts - and even then there was the occasional request from others to relax a bit - but nowehere near the level of recent events with the almost insistent nature of his posts.

I don't think immersion arrived and started aggravating people straight away - he has been posting for for 5 1/2 years - perhaps something elsewhere has changed, and not seeing the guy face to face we just don't know what it may be or if we can help in any way.

You arrived at an interesting time in Hypnos Forum history, Castleview!

I think I will close this topic, just so it doesn't end up becoming an unfair piling-on of a person who can't post their side of the story.

The last thing I will add (to everyone, not to you, Castleview) is this: Forums like this one are only as healthy and vital as the posting and discussion that happens within. If you're a lurker, why not try posting? If you sometimes reply to other people's topics, why not try posting a new topic of your own?

I don't mind that the forum is "slower" lately than in the past -- that's inevitable with the shift in people's focus to social networks -- but I was a little surprised to see other forums either disappear, or have no new posts in several months.